


After the Fall

by KRizal



Series: Short Stories and Ficlets [2]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Blood, M/M, Pre-Slash, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-02
Updated: 2014-08-02
Packaged: 2018-02-11 12:01:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2067390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KRizal/pseuds/KRizal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It happened on a Wednesday afternoon, around two o’clock p.m.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After the Fall

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: The PJO/HOO fandom falls under the legal ownership of Rick Riordan. I own nothing unless stated otherwise.

It happened on a Wednesday afternoon, around two o’clock p.m.

The di Angelo family had just returned from a camping trip and were unloading the car. The neighborhood was strangely quiet, and there were no cars in sight but theirs, but they paid it no mind. It was summer vacation after all. Twelve-year old Nico di Angelo was tying up trash bags, humming under his breath, when there was a shout from the front porch. He left the bags and rushed outside.

His father Hades was gripping the arms of an old man. Nico recognized him as their next door neighbor Mr. Martinez.

Only he didn’t look like the kind, happy man who held weekly barbeques and headed the neighborhood watch.

He was covered in blood, dripping in it, and had a look on his face that Nico could only describe as that of a crazed lunatic locked up inside for too long. He staggered like a drunk, one foot twisted backwards. Then he wrenched free of Hades’s grasp and pulled out a sleek black gun from his jacket.

"Father!" Nico cried, frozen in his mother’s shaking arms.

Mr. Martinez broke into a peal of chilling, wretched laughs and leveled the gun on Hades. “Tick, tock, tick, tock,” he chanted gleefully, “what are you gonna do? What are you gonna do when they come for you?”

Nico shrank from the ominous words. Mr. Martinez looked straight at him. His smile was split across his face and blood glazed his teeth, as if he had drank it. His eyes were completely black. Nico started to scream.

Then Bianca was in front of him, notching an arrow on her bow and letting it whistle through the air. It sank into Mr. Martinez’s head with a hollow thunk.

He fell like a doll from a child’s hands, laying on the sidewalk smiling at the sky, the arrow protruding clean from his forehead. And in the silence that followed, there was only the distant sound of the television Bianca had turned on inside, with last night’s reporters announcing the beginning of the end.

* * *

Nico breathes lightly, once, twice, before looking around the aisle. There are six of them, more than he has taken on alone before. Beyond their lumbering bodies is the pharmacy, locked but hopefully untouched.

He studies the crazies, bow strung and ready. Four of them look nothing special, must have been customers before they turned, but the other two wear lab coats and crooked name tags. Surely one of them has the key card. He bites his lip and goes over his options.

He can try taking all of them down, but there is a risk of one of them alerting the rest, drawing the attention of all the crazies in the block and them some. Nico will be dead before he can draw another arrow.

Sneaking past is not a logical option, and the store is too small and littered to set up a good diversion on the other side. Nico rolls his shoulders, frustrated. He doesn’t want to stay long, not with the heavy storm clouds he spotted on his way to the town.

It just can’t be done. Not today. Nico slumps with guilt as he thinks of Hazel’s hopeful face despite the gash in her arm, how she smiles even when Nico’s concoctions of herbs wear off only a few hours later.

A rumble of thunder sounds overhead. With one last look at the crazies, Nico slips out the store and into the street, bringing up the bow and surveying the area sharply.

Even three years into the apocalypse, he is not completely used to the sight of overturned rusty cars, broken buildings, decayed corpses on the sidewalks. The still abandonment of cities that once bustled with life. The eerie silence that they left behind.

Nico adjusts his half-empty backpack and makes his way through the street, arrow notched and pointed low.

His trek is uneventful until he spots a limping figure ahead. He ducks behind a car, resting his bow over the bumper. The woman, clothed in dried blood and dirt, groans and jerks her head from side to side. She must have caught his scent. Nico exhales and lets loose the arrow. It pierces deep into the flat of her forehead. She crumples with a rough, hungry croak.

One more to join the crowded ranks of the lost and gone. Nico shivers in his thin coat as a cool wind raises goosebumps on his skin. Rolls of thunder crack in the sky. He hurries carefully past the woman’s body, stepping around shattered glass and anonymous bones.

He goes behind the bakery and climbs over the fence that separates the town from the woodlands. Once he is at the top, he reaches out to grab a rope snagged on a low-lying branch. Kicking off the bakery’s back wall, he melts into the shadows of the forest.

It is raining heavily by the time he arrives at camp. But the tired relief he usually feels when he sees the tree-house is broken by the sound of unfamiliar voices. Everything turns cold. Hazel.

He draws an arrow and creeps closer, straining to hear. His heart pounds against his chest.

"… leave her there for now. He’ll know what to do," Hazel is saying. Nico pauses. She sounds calm. Sane. Not threatened.

"Okay," a male voice replies. "Really, I can’t thank you enough."

Nico tenses. He vaults silently over the makeshift railing, stands in the doorway, and readies his shot. “Don’t move.”

"Nico!" Hazel rises from the floor immediately. Beside her on the bed is another girl, dark-haired and sleeping, one leg wrapped in a bandage. Standing near the wall is a tall blonde guy dressed in dirty jeans and a camouflage jacket. Nico aims at him.

"Wait-" Hazel starts. He shakes his head, eyes trained on the stranger.

"What’s your name?" Nico asks.

"Jason Grace," he replies, slowly putting his hands up. Nico takes note of the shotgun over his shoulder and the machete at his hip.

"Who’s on the bed?"

"My sister Thalia."

"How did you find us?"

"We were running from a hoard and Hazel threw us a rope ladder." Nico’s eyes flick to Hazel. She nods almost imperceptibly.

"What do you want?" he continues, still unconvinced.

"Just a place to stay until Thalia gets better."

"What’s wrong with her?"

"She has a fever." Jason pauses and Nico exaggerates flexing his fingers. "It’s mostly because of the wound on her leg. But it’s not infected or anything. We just got caught in the storm with a hoard. We’re not looking for any trouble."

Nico arches a brow. “Is that right.”

The guy - Jason - bites his scarred lip and holds out his hands. “Please, we just need a place to stay until she heals. I won’t get in your way, I won’t ask questions. If there’s a problem about security or supplies, I can shoot well enough and don’t eat much. We’ll be out of your hair in no time.”

"It sounds like you’ve said that a lot before," Nico muses.

Jason smiles weakly. “I have.”

Nico considers it. He and Hazel have done fine on their own so far, always moving and never settling down for too long if they can help it. He goes on runs and she scouts, and they switch often. Food and safety are relatively easy to secure for only two people.

And Nico can’t forget their last group. Percy, Annabeth, and Grover. How good it felt to have someone watching his back all the time. How talking and joking amongst themselves kept him sane during the worst times.

How that illusion shattered when Percy left Bianca behind on the street swarming with crazies.

A soft touch jolts him out of the memory. Hazel is clutching the sleeve of his jacket. Her eyes are wide and imploring. “Nico. Snap out of it. It’s okay.”

Nico shudders and looks back at Jason, who schools his confusion into patient passiveness. His eyes are blue. They remind Nico of the sky before everything went to shit. Pure. Untainted.

If he and Thalia have made it this far, then they are at least smart and skilled in some way. They’re survivors, just like him and Hazel. Trying to live in a world that hunts them day and night, a constant terror and nightmare. Reminding them that they are now at the bottom of the food chain.

The decision, when it boils down to the bare bones and facts, is simple to make even if it is difficult to execute.

Nico returns the arrow to his quiver and extends his hand. “If you try anything on Hazel or me, I’ll kill you. You slow me down on supply runs, I’ll leave you. You can’t pull your weight, you’ll eat last. Understand?” He knows his words are harsh and cruel, slicing through the air as ruthlessly as his arrows. They never miss their marks.

Jason’s hand nearly engulfs Nico’s. “I understand.” He looks determined and hopeful.

"Good." Nico pulls away and turns to Hazel, softening his features. "Hey."

"Hi," Hazel greets, hugging him tightly, despite his wet and cold clothes. "Can you take a look at Thalia?"

Nico hands her the backpack and kneels beside the girl, testing her forehead. It is burning up. He notices that her face is gaunt and pale. He moves on to her leg.

"Can I take off the bandage?" he asks over his shoulder.

"Yeah, sure," Jason answers. Nico peels away the cloth and frowns. There are five jagged lines from the knee to the ankle. Not too deep, just need surface stitches at least. Like Jason said, they don’t look infected, but are still open wounds and the skin around them are mottled with dark bruises.

Nico’s herbs will not be enough for a full recovery.

"We need to get to that pharmacy," Nico says. He covers the wound and stands up. "Tomorrow, if we can."

"Where is it?" Jason asks, hovering over his shoulder. His face is pinched with worry.

"In the town. It’s full of crazies and not enough open space." Nico rubs his eyes. "Once the rain stops, I’ll look for some herbs to prevent infection. When was the last time she ate or drank?"

Jason is quiet for a few seconds. When he replies, his voice is nearly inaudible above the rain battering the tree-house. “I don’t remember. Our rations ran out three, four days ago.”

"I’ll make you something to eat," Hazel speaks up, putting some cans to the side. Jason visibly hesitates and looks to Nico, as if asking for permission.

"Go ahead," Nico grunts, taken aback.

"Thank you," Jason says. He steps closer. Nico can see the shadows beneath his eyes. "Really. You won’t regret this."

"I better not," Nico replies uncomfortably, turning away and sliding his jacket off. A little voice nags at the back of his mind, bringing up all the ways this arrangement can go wrong. And there are so many. He wonders if he has made the right decision in the long run. Mistakes are death sentences, and he’s already at the front line for the gallows.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please feel free to leave comments and check out my tumblr at krrizal.tumblr.com for progress updates on stories, beta-ing/commission services, and fanfiction reviews.


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